Wildlife

All destination tours I had led previously, I had gone out to scout first, Africa is a tough one to scout, so I scouted it on Google. All it takes is interminable of hours measured in weeks and months of planning LOL.

It is believed a changing climate, or the impact of newly arrived human hunters where the demise of America’s horses. Archeologists have found Clovis spearheads with Equus DNA attached providing definitive proof that early humans in North America hunted horses for their meat.

The wolf is such a keystone as is the grizzly as well as the beaver. All these species have experienced wide variance of population as we humans interfered and now with our elementary, but growing understanding of ecosystems try to undue damage we have done.

Well Bill explained that he is with a golden eagle that can’t fly and not being far from my home in Swan Valley Idaho, he asked whether I knew the local Game and Fish people so we could rescue this eagle.

Grizzly 399 produces triplets again, or so it seems. Absent is the red ear tag bling that positively identified her in the past. Nonetheless a 400-pound road tolerant grizzly sow has shown up in Grizzly 399’s territory with three new adorable cubs.

Whenever I surprise a mule deer doe or fawn, and alarmingly their heads pop out of the forage like a jack-in-the-box, appearing as though they just got out of the beauty parlor, their oversized, ever alert, ears reaching for the sky, their eyes wide and big as saucers they always demonstrate why “doe-eyed” has become a cliché for beautiful, innocent eyes.

Native American legend across the country holds that the Great Spirit built the land, made the seas, and filled both well with animals and people: Long, long ago when the Great Waters surged in a blind and shoreless world, the gigantic beaver swam and dove and spoke with the Great Spirit.

In July of 2012 I got some great news when I heard the Baron had made it through another winter, I knew where I would be as soon as late September arrived. With the arrival of Autumn my priorities were divided between the elk rut, the moose rut, and fall colors but I was still checking often for the Baron. After multiple strikeouts I finally found him.

About three quarters around my loop I stopped to photograph a six point bull looking for the ladies and while photographing him a black wolf walked into the frame, stopped, posed then moved out of the frame. How fortuitous, I love it when serendipity smiles upon me!

The Yellowstone Grizzly Bear, once an endangered species, is on the rebound. The once ubiquitous Yellowstone Grizzly was as synonymous with a trip to Yellowstone as the obligatory pilgrimage to Old Faithful. Today it requires more luck to spot a grizzly.

Rocky Mountain Bighorn Sheep make their homes in the highest parts of the mountains, where people find it difficult to go and the Greater Yellowstone region is home to thousands. The grace and beauty of the Bighorn Sheep is a treasure to see if you are lucky enough to come across any.

Yellowstone’s black bears are a favorite of park visitors mostly because of the clown like antics of the cubs but also because of the sheer joy of finding a bear, any bear. Black Bears can be seen most anywhere in Yellowstone at anytime except winter.

A year of video and stills compressed into YouTube’s fifteen-minute format. It was a great year of bears, wolves, elk and such. The video starts at the beginning of the year and takes you through to the end. Since it was too long I had to remove all of the Grizzly 399 and 310 footage as well as other wildlife dramas but they can be found elsewhere here on the blog.

In late November of 2005 she denned up in the Teton Wilderness north of Grand Teton National Park for hibernation. The following spring, she emerged with three new cubs in tow. Almost immediately, the sow and cubs drew large crowds, as they became a sensation unlike any Grand Teton Park grizzly in modern memory.

If the grizzly and wolf are the iconic heart of Greater Yellowstone’s wilderness, I believe Yellowstone’s elk are the soul. The majestic bulls of fall bugling, struting, and fighting for harems of cows surely is one of the greatest shows in nature.

Bison are the largest mammals in Yellowstone National Park. They are grazers of grasslands, meadows, foothills, and even the high-elevation, forested plateaus of Yellowstone. They are uniquely suited for survival in the deep snows of Yellowstone’s winter, their giant head works as a snow plow as they move it back and fourth to clear a place to browse.

When God was finished creating all the animals of the earth he had a bunch of animal parts left over, and not wanting to let anything go to waste he figured he would try to piece together another animal.

God took some giraffe legs and attached them to a horse torso and capped it with a hump from a grizzly bear. He wasn’t sure how the long face of an Englishmen ended up in the animal spare parts pile but figured it would balance the large torso so one it went.

The bald eagle holds a position in the pecking order that parallels that of the grizzly. Of all the birds in the park, visitors are most interested in spotting this photogenic species. The Yellowstone/Grand Teton area is now home to one of largest populations of eagles in the continental United States They can be found along the lakes and rivers of Yellowstone where they perch in trees watching for fish. The Yellowstone Plateau, Snake River, Yellowstone Lake, and headwaters of the Madison River are prime spotting areas for this spectacular bird.